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Te'o thread cont. (as of 1/17/11 7:30 AM EST)

BeachBumDeac said:
You are like five days late on this joke.
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I know. I think I might even have been the one to post it five days ago. Threads too long to check, though. I wasn't sure if I had posted it here or FSU's board. Apparently, it was here.
 
I actually watched The Decision. You couldn't pay me to watch The Katie Couric show with Te'o on it.
 
Chris said:
I know. I think I might even have been the one to post it five days ago. Threads too long to check, though. I wasn't sure if I had posted it here or FSU's board. Apparently, it was here.
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There's no way you were the first one to post it. I've seen it all over the Internet.
 
BarcaDeac said:
You seem to be taking credit for it
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If you say so. I thought of a joke that everyone and their mother thought about. Not trying to take credit. I think you're making a big deal over nothing.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
 
BeachBumDeac said:
http://deadspin.com/5977190/a-near+complete-twitter-archive-for-lennay-kekua-and-ronaiah-tuiasosopo

http://deadspin.com/5977387/lennay-and-manti-and-ronaiah-a-love-story-in-tweets
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e65.gif
 
PhDeac said:
The cover story scrolling on ESPN seems ridiculous. A fake girlfriend stages a fake death to avoid drug dealers? Just a really bad cover up by ESPN and ND.
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If this was a joke, I apologize in advance. But you think ESPN and Notre Dame -- two massive, sophisticated businesses with billions in total assets -- are actively fabricating lies, themselves, in order to cover up for Manti Te'o, because they'd prefer he still be the perfect poster boy? Um, no. Not unless they forgot to have legal departments. I get that they both would prefer the hoax story to be true, and will push articles to that effect, but if you think either of these entities is going to risk a credibility scandal to cover up the Te'o scandal, you're getting a little too worked up. Ain't gonna happen. The risk/reward for either is pretty blatantly against it. ESPN isn't attending any meetings where they plot out how to lie Te'o out of this. That's a quick path to business suicide.
 
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ArlingtonDeac said:
If this was a joke, I apologize in advance. But you think ESPN and Notre Dame -- two massive, sophisticated businesses with billions in total assets -- are actively fabricating lies, themselves, in order to cover up for Manti Te'o because they'd prefer he be the perfect poster boy? Um, no. Not unless they forget to have legal departments. I get that they both would prefer the hoax story to be true, and will push articles to that effect, but if you think either of these entities is going to risk a credibility scandal to cover the Te'o scandal, you're getting a little too worked up. Ain't gonna happen. The risk/reward for either is pretty blatantly against it. ESPN isn't attending any meaning where they plot out how to lie Te'o out of this. That's a quick path to business suicide.
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Find: Replace
Penn State: Notre Dame
Te'o: Sandusky
 
jhmd2000 said:
Find: Replace
Penn State: Notre Dame
Te'o: Sandusky
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Not even close. Penn State has actually legal culpability for Sandusky, and a very real legal and business interest in minimizing what occurred. The Penn State scandal involves the school itself as a major player in a series of horrific criminal events. It involves school buildings, school-sponsored activities, school employees. There is no parallel.

The two school aren't even remotely in the same positions. That's the point, really. The only way Notre Dame gets embroiled in anything serious here, for the university itself, is if they actively participate is manufacturing some misguided cover up. Which they won't because, again, I imagine they have a lawyer/administrator or two who can explain how much worse the consequences of specifically lying about such a bizarre but at-the-end-of-the-day victimless event would be over the mild embarrassment they currently have with Te'o debacle. They'll help him, and protect him, but they aren't going to stick out there neck's where it isn't safe. Unless they are team of unfathomable morons. Quadruple that for ESPN.
 
The two schools clearly aren't in the same position, but it's also naive to say Notre Dame doesn't have a business interest in what occurred. Even though the University lacks any legal culpability, they still want to minimize any damage to the University's reputation. How else do you explain their more-or-less explicit instructions to their investigators to dig deep enough to say there wasn't reputation damage but not so deep as to do any real investigating?
 
TexasDeac10 said:
The two schools clearly aren't in the same position, but it's also naive to say Notre Dame doesn't have a business interest in what occurred. Even though the University lacks any legal culpability, they still want to minimize any damage to the University's reputation. How else do you explain their more-or-less explicit instructions to their investigators to dig deep enough to say there wasn't reputation damage but not so deep as to do any real investigating?
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I agree with all that, but if you think ND (or ESPN) is going to knowingly lie for Te'o, or create and push lies for him, themselves -- on any issue that has even the slightest possibility of being discovered and outed -- you're not crunching the risk/reward correctly (IMO). Honestly, there is almost (but not quite) no damage to ND's reputation based on the Te'o debacle. The University isn't really a part of it, other than a bit of getting their noses rubbed in the dirt by people who don't really like ND's PR machine to begin with. It's fun to tweak the golden dome, but nobody is really blaming ND for what happened. They bought the same thing everyone else did. Why wouldn't they? But in the end, Te'o's issue isn't the school's issue.

But .... all that changes, completely, if Deadspin runs a story next week that proves ND itself overtly lied to the public to protect Te'o. That would be a major scandal that sticks to the school like glue, forever. No chance they risk that, again, unless they are out of their minds. Rule number one in PR is to never insert yourself into a scandal that doesn't involve you, or can't really hurt you. ND can't really get hurt by Te'o unless they do something dumb like cover for him.

And personally, I'm not surprised ND's investigation was superficial. The last thing they want to know is more, because if they did discover something fishy, what the hell are they supposed to do with that info? They aren't the police. They aren't the media. They only owe a duty to the school and its students, of which Manti Te'o is one. I'd tell them to leave the whole thing alone and accept whatever comes out in the backwash. Support their guy, but do it from the protective blanket of ignorance. If Te'o gets caught out, it's still his problem, not yours. If he turns out to be playing everyone, make sure you're in the same boat as "everyone."

Final thought: Would we support Wake Forest investigating a player who was still a student, for something embarrassing but non-criminal like this, and then releasing those finding to the public, if the findings would absolutely bury the player's reputation? I wouldn't. The school's function isn't to facilitating the burning of one of its own for a non-criminal mistake. The better course is to stay out of it altogether, and support the player based on what you think is true.

Just my thoughts.
 
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I really don't think Notre Dame actively lied for Te'o. At all. I think the whole thing caught them by surprise. I do think they wanted to avoid knowing too much, and it's still very possible that Te'o figured out the hoax at some point and still embellished his relationship to the media.

If that's truly because he was embarrassed about the nature of an online relationship and the fact that he was duped, then fine, he's a romantic rube. That's totally plausible and realistic. I think it's equally realistic that he figured it out (or was told about it) at some point, and still peddled some lies to the media because he's a bit of a media whore. We know his dad, Brian Te'o, is a media whore in the worst way. I don't see why the apple would fall far from the tree.
 
TexasDeac10 said:
I really don't think Notre Dame actively lied for Te'o. At all. I think the whole thing caught them by surprise. I do think they wanted to avoid knowing too much, and it's still very possible that Te'o figured out the hoax at some point and still embellished his relationship to the media.

If that's truly because he was embarrassed about the nature of an online relationship and the fact that he was duped, then fine, he's a romantic rube. That's totally plausible and realistic. I think it's equally realistic that he figured it out (or was told about it) at some point, and still peddled some lies to the media because he's a bit of a media whore. We know his dad, Brian Te'o, is a media whore in the worst way. I don't see why the apple would fall far from the tree.
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I think you've hit it on the head. He was clearly duped to begin with, and probably said some things after he knew he'd been duped. The only question is why, and to what extent, as you eloquently posted above.
 
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